Breaking Into the 12's?

i was just wandering would i beable to get into the 12's or low 13's with 1200 to spend.
I have a 98 Trans Am A4 with a lid, highflow filter, smooth intake bellow, magnaflow high flow cats, and a magnaflow cat back exhaust...
what should be my next mods that would put me close to the 12, with 1200 to spend..excluding nos
thanks for any help just trying to decide on my next performance upgrade

Stall converter.

if i go for a stall converter, should i also put in 3:73 gears..and a shift kit
i'm not sure tho how the new gears would work ..if you could explain it i would deffinitly appreciate it
thx for ur help

New gears will keep you in your powerband better.
3.73 is the norm for an A4 car.
I would think with a stall and gears alone you should see 12's pretty easy. Might need a sticky tire though.

Not sure about the shift kits for the LS1 auto cars. Never looked into it.

3500 stall will rock your world. You MUST get a transmission cooler with a stall or you'll kill the 4L60E with the extra heat they generate. Shift kits are a good idea but not a must. Higher stalls tend to make the shifts feel "soft" or "sloppy". So most like to tighten up the shifts either through a shift kit or tuning. I tuned mine by raising line preasure a little, deleting torque management and raising the shift points. But I still might do a shift kit down the road. Then again, I might just ditch the 4L60E for a TH400 (yeah baby!).

As far as gears, I would check and see which ones you have first. Open the drivers door and look at the RPO codes on the white sticker. You will either see GU2 or GU5.

GU2=2.73

GU5=3.23

If you have 2.73's then I would start making plans to change them. 3.73's are best. If you have 3.23's then I would recommend keeping them. It's a decent performance gear that matches well with a 3000-3800 stall. It also maintains good manners for highway runs and MPG.

Gears by themselves are a good performance gain but coupled with a 3500 stall the gears make a very minimal improvement in ET. It's not until you upgrade your cam that 3.73's gear start to shine again as a must have mod. But for now I would just get the stall, trans cooler and maybe a shift kit.

Drag radials in the back is another good investment. Stock rubber tend to go up in a flame of smoke with most aftermarket torque converters :banghead:

Good luck.

shot of nitrous will do it for 1200 bucks

what should be my next mods that would put me close to the 12, with 1200 to spend..excluding nos

what are you running now, or haven't you gone yet? my buddy has a 98 z28 and he was running 13.3 with pretty much full bolt ons. i would start with some headers and y pipe since you already have the catback and then throw on some slicks. that should get you low 13's. 12's you're gonna need more bolt ons and a tune. after that your gonna need a cam and heads and another tune to go any faster.

yeah i'm deffinitly getting a converter..and prolly new gears in the future..i have 2.73...it read GU2 ..thanks for your help

i had 2:73's in my 79 caprice and that thing straight bitch slapped the needlle on the speedo. i bet it could do like 150